Al Jazeera Discovers Partisan Justice, 4 Years After Obama's Drone Memos
Al Jazeera's deep dive into a hypothetical Trump second term depicts a 'post-independence' Justice Department, where 'critics fear' partisan goals have eclipsed justice. How remarkably prescient of them to identify this chilling prospect in 2025. It's almost as if prosecutorial independence was a sacred cow until a certain orange-skinned president came along. Where was this nuanced concern when
the Obama administration's DOJ, under Eric Holder, utilized the Espionage Act against whistleblowers at an unprecedented rate, or greenlit the killing of US citizens abroad without trial based on secret legal memos? (Receipt: ACLU on Obama DOJ Espionage Act cases; New York Times on drone program's legal justification.) One might wonder if 'prosecutorial independence' is less about the institution
and more about whose ox is being gored. The constant hand-wringing over the Justice Department's integrity, exclusively when it's perceived to benefit one political faction over another, certainly raises questions. It appears the ideal of an impartial DOJ is only sacrosanct when it's not enforcing policies inconvenient to the prevailing narrative—or perhaps, when its partisan leanings align with
the critics'.